Zeenews Bureau
Brandon: Jeffrey Bush, who was swallowed by a sinkhole in his bedroom, is reportedly presumed dead on Saturday after rescue crews failed to make any contact with him.
The rescue effort has been postponed as the officials look into the area under the house that has been compromised, as per BBC report.
Bush screamed for help and disappeared as a large sinkhole opened under the bedroom of a house, his brother said on Friday.
The brother told rescue crews he heard a loud crash near midnight and then heard his brother screaming.
"When he got there, there was no bedroom left," Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Jessica Damico said. "There was no furniture. All he saw was a piece of the mattress sticking up."
The brother called police and frantically tried to help. An arriving deputy pulled him from the still-collapsing house. There`s been no contact with the man since then, and neighbours on both sides of the home have been evacuated.
"We put engineering equipment into the sinkhole and didn`t see anything compatible with life," Damico said. But Damico would not say that the man is presumed dead.
Damico estimated that the sinkhole was about 30 feet (9 metres) across. "The entire house is on the sinkhole," Damico said.
